Conquering Roadblocks: “I want to eat healthy, but where do I start? I’m overwhelmed!”

I had a wonderful friend of mine over to my home this week. She was looking at all the different things we were doing nutrition-wise. I showed her our perpetual bone broth in a slow cooker that runs 24/7, our stash of raw, grassfed, whole fat milk, and made her a slice of cinnamon raisin sprouted bread, toasted, and topped with grassfed butter. She loved it all.

But then she got honest with me. She told me about how she was trying to eat healthy, but that she really did not know where to start, and how overwhelmed she felt about the whole thing. She went on to state that she’s made trips to the health food store, but she doesn’t really know what to do when she gets there. She feels that she ends up buying a lot of things that don’t end up tasting good, gets thrown away, and then she feels immensely frustrated that money is going down the drain. And finally that feeling comes of, “What’s the use?” Can anyone out there relate to this?

“Next time you are feeling overwhelmed remember the quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson, ‘The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.'”~Catherine Pulsifer, from Overwhelmed

I can understand how nutrition can be overwhelming, especially if you’re starting late in life. And there is so much conflicting information out there. And I’m not here to give you a magical formula that will make it all perfectly transparent and simplify it down to three easy steps. It doesn’t really work that way.

What I CAN offer you however, is one, simple, easy suggestion, that can set you on the path to where you want to be nutrition-wise. Are you ready for that? Promise me you won’t overlook its simplicity?

Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated. ~Confucius

Here goes. I challenge you to make ONE nutritional change a week. Just ONE. It can be a VERY simple change. Start off with something easy. For example, this week, I will incorporate green tea once daily. Or, I will eat organic apples as a snack once a day this week. Or, I will switch to raw milk for all my milk intake this week. Or, I will switch to real, organic butter instead of margarine all this week.

At the end of the week, take a look and see if what you did agrees with you and your family, and if you want to make that a lifestyle or permanent change or not. You’ll find you’ll fall in love with some things and not find good fits with others.

Why is this a great thing to do? Because first of all, it’s something simple. You’ve GOT to make this simple. You make it too hard, and you’re going to be defeated before you start. Food should be fun and no stress. Make it stressful and you’re sabotaging yourself at the starting gate.

Second, by making it simple and trying something for a week, it becomes a much higher chance percentage-wise that you will make a change into a LIFESTYLE change for you. Lifestyle changes will have more impact on you than a short temporary run. Nutrition is a marathon, not a sprint race.

In baseball, my theory is to strive for consistency, not to worry about the numbers. If you dwell on statistics you get shortsighted, if you aim for consistency, the numbers will be there at the end. ~Tom Seaver

Third, you are starting the process of making consistent changes. Every week when you make those decisions about what you’re going to eat for the next week, you are starting a consistent process that will turn into a habit, of deciding a small nutritional change. It’s the consistency that is the BIG thing here. It’s not about making huge drastic changes overnight. It’s about making small, consistent changes that are actually going to STICK for you and your family.

As far as deciding what changes to make each week, you may have to do some research. Make that research fun. Start with examining what you are already interested in. There’s got to be something that piques your interest. Maybe you feel led about more raw foods. Maybe there’s just something about gluten free that you feel drawn to. Maybe you’ve always had a thing for Japanese food cause you always feel so good when you eat that. Maybe you’re a dessert person and your thing will be to find a new healthy dessert each week for awhile. Maybe you’re a soda addict and you want to find an alternative that will make it easy to toss that soda habit. Maybe you’re drawn to going back to real traditional foods and cooking, back before there were chronic diseases rampant in a world of processed fake foods and GMO’s. Go where you are interested in. Research what makes you excited about nutrition. If you don’t make this fun, honestly, you won’t go anywhere.

“You don’t have to cook fancy or complicated masterpieces – just good food from fresh ingredients.” ~Julia Child

My heart really went out to my friend when she said she was wasting all this money for food that didn’t taste good. My friends, if you’re reading this, I want to tell you, that if it doesn’t taste good, don’t eat it. You’ve gone somewhere off the path. It’s a myth that eating healthy means you give up taste, or have to count calories, give up fatty desserts, or that what you are eating is something you will have to force yourself through. All that is just LIES. Utter LIES. I NEVER force myself to eat anything. I NEVER count calories. I eat delicious, healthy fatty desserts that are better than anything I’ve ever had in a luxury restaurant or bakery, and wake up the next morning with not gaining a pound (and that’s NOT due to a fabulous genetic metabolism.)

For some people, it may be best for you to seek out a nutritional coach to help you get started or get through some road bumps. If you don’t have the funds for that, then find a friend who seems to be glowing with health and is excited about tasty healthy food and learn from them. Your friend can be your nutritional coach for awhile. Another avenue you have is right here, in the BSP community. If you have a specific question, have a health/nutrition topic you want explored or debunked, feel free to email me. You can also post on our facebook page. We are all here to help you on this. Nutrition is your future and your family’s future. It should be fun, exciting, and taste SO good, you don’t want that processed crap anymore, cause it simply does not compare. ❤

“Those who think they have no time for healthy eating, will sooner or later have to find time for illness.” ~ Edward Stanley

8 thoughts on “Conquering Roadblocks: “I want to eat healthy, but where do I start? I’m overwhelmed!””

I love this! Thanks! I totally have that issue of feeling overwhelmed when I think about changing my diet to a healthier one. I truly want to get my family eating better foods all around, but I’ve never known where to start! It makes sense to do one thing at a time and decided on it. I’m loving the idea of making a life style change rather then some silly diet or something.

Thanks for your compliment! I’d love to hear more about your journey in the future. 5 years into ours, I can really see the impact of making lifestyle changes that were small enough to not be overwhelming. There’s things we’re doing now, we never thought we would EVER do, and to not be forcing ourselves is AWESOME.

For example, I grew up on a 7-10 coca-colas a day habit. SERIOUSLY. It was something I thought I would never be able to give up. Any glimmer of hope that I could was combined with how hard I thought it was going to be. In fact though, I was able to give that up without forcing myself to. In fact, I replaced it with something I like A LOT better.

Thank you for being honest and actually saying ” to make ONE nutritional step a week”. That’s big! Most people would just say, “go out and get this.. get that” making you feel you have to make this drastic, dramatic change.

Most people know, If you lose weight fast, it will come back just as fast.. but if you pace your workouts, start small and stay diligent.. in time you will see the results and the weight stays off. It is the same with what you are saying here too. It makes total sense.

This has so been my frustration as well. I tried eating healthy. Spending and losing money to try and create a better, healthier lifestyle for my husband and I. But I have learned some incredible truths and insight from you BSP. You have forced me to look at the things differently. Not to overwhelm myself, but to start with the basics.. Eggs, Milk, Bread, Butter. That’s what I’m choosing to start off with, because in our house we eat this everyday. For me these are simple, basic things I can start from and go from there.

I will definitely hold off on the unnecessary shopping of “just buying” anything that says its “organic”.. but with your help, to start right here in my own cupboards, and my own frig. And make it a fun in discovering good nutrition. Find local farmers and healthier food resources to help me make the right and healthy choices.. one week at a time.

Excellent, excellent advice! I was a nutrition consultant many, many, many (you get the picture, lol) years ago and always stressed small, incremental, doable changes. And I really like how you emphasize that good tasting food doesn’t have to be left behind. Good stuff!